A personal blog about quilting, sewing and life as a mother. Lots of free tutorials including beginning quilting tutorials, binding tutorials, and other sewing projects like bags, quilt blocks and nursing covers.

Field Trip Friday: Purl Soho

One of my favorite stops on our recent trip to Manhattan was the new Purl Soho shop. Check out that front window alone. Does it get your creative juices flowing?? The pillows, the wool circle garland . . .

Purl was a knitting store opened in NY in 2002. A few years later a fabric/quilting store was opened down the street called Purl Patchwork. Just a few months ago both stores were combined into one larger location called Purl Soho. They also have a beautiful, inspiring blog called Purlbee as well as an online fabric store called Purlsoho.com. I visited Purl Patchwork – a tiny little shop with gorgeous fabrics (and my favorite wall of Liberty prints in hoops) two years ago. It wasn’t until later that I found their blog. I’ve since been inspired numerous times and was so excited to go back and see their new digs.

And here they are. A gorgeous, light, open space with high ceilings and everything beautifully organized. I loved how uncluttered the store felt. (Rather different than shops in the Fabric District.)

Once again – not an overwhelming amount of fabric, but each bolt was well chosen. A lot of great Japanese imports, whimsical Alexander Henry prints, and a collection of good basics. Look at the fabulous collection of Echino prints at the bottom.

LOVELY collection of prints by Liberty of London. The real stuff. (Like $35.00 a yard stuff – which I still can’t bring myself to buy. But if anyone wants to give me some, I would cheerfully take it off their hands. *wink, wink*) So I didn’t bring any home, but it was nice to just oogle it and pet it for a while.

One of my favorite quilts from Purl is their Color Wheel quilt.

I want to make one of these one day.

This pretty bundle is a kit to make the Color Wheel quilt.

I also loved how the whole store was grouped like a color spectrum.

So appealing to the eye. And soothing.

The whole shop felt so clean, organized and conducive to igniting that creative spark.

Some pretty non-color items as well.

Lot of great fabric collections pre-bundled to choose from. This one was my favorite. How I wanted to take those little spaceships home with me.

If you go, expect a NYC (i.e. higher) price scale on everything. I didn’t buy much (because I’m such a bargain fabric shopper) but I loved pretty much everything in the store.

The staff was really helpful and patient too. (I got a kick out of one girl patiently trying to explain to a customer why the lightweight, gauzy fabric she wanted wouldn’t be the greatest choice to re-cover an ottoman. The poor associate was trying to be affirming of this customer’s good taste in fabric, while helping her understand that some fabric is not made for furniture. The customer kept pleading, “yeah, but I love this one” as if the sales associate would just say, “Oh, okay. I’ll just pull out my magic fabric wand and make that fabric into sturdy upholstery fabric, impervious to any wear and tear.” In the end the customer decided she would just get double the amount of fabric and cover her ottoman in two layers – because quickly wearing out two layers of expensive gauze makes so much more sense. But hey- if you’ve got the cash, you can re-cover furniture – and re-cover again – in whatever you want!)

Anyway, visit Purl Soho – or at least the Purlbee blog – and I promise you will be inspired many times over.

What a beautiful shop! It&#39;s so full of light and looks so clean and modern. Thanks for the pictures. I love all the colors. <br />So sorry I didn&#39;t get down to the quilt store yesterday, I really wanted to come by and see you. I overdid it with my errands on Wednesday and was too wiped out to do much yesterday. Let&#39;s just say I won&#39;t be pushing a Costco cart around again

This is on my list of shops I&#39;d love to visit one day. Your pictures are beautiful and confirmed that this store should remain on my list.<br /><br />I love my fabric organized by color but not my yarn.

Thanks – I&#39;m planning a visit to New York next year with my daughter, and this will be on our list of places to visit.<br />I was lucky enough to have afternoon tea at Liberty&#39;s in London last week – it&#39;s a fab shop! I have a box of scraps if you&#39;d like some

I am in love with your photos. They are absolutely stunning. And I have had this post open on my computer for like 4 hours. I just keep coming back to look at these pretty pics. LOVE them! (Also…. I&#39;m jealous :o)

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Copyright 2008-2013 Amy Smart/DiaryofaQuilter.com. All photos and content are my own unless otherwise noted. I love when people link to or pin my content, only please cite the original post. Please do not reproduce or publish copies of my patterns and tutorials. Contact me with any questions or concerns. Thank you!